


Healing

by littlegraybunny



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 14:37:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlegraybunny/pseuds/littlegraybunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassie comes home to the clubhouse to find Teddy is having a very bad day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> This story does depict a character having a massive panic attack, so be warned.

Cassie was actually looking forward to an afternoon with the clubhouse quiet and all to herself. The boys were out, doing whatever boys do, and Kate had a society thing to attend with her father, so Cassie planned to pull out some of her favourite mushy romantic comedies that only Billy would watch with her and have some fatty snacks and maybe a good cry. And with any luck, no one would come barging in to disrupt.

But, when she got to the clubhouse, she realized she was going to be foiled before she even began. There was a backpack resting on one of the chairs at the small table beside the living area, and it looked like Teddy’s. Billy’s wasn’t beside it (odd) but maybe he’d stashed it somewhere else. Or he hadn’t even taken it off before the two of them had gone into another room to make out loudly, as they tended to.

But there were no voices from the other rooms, or giggling. It was silent aside from the whirr of the heaters and the hum of the mini-fridge. She decided that maybe she could have her quiet afternoon after all, and went to the bathroom to wash gym-class sweat off her face from last period.

When she opened the door, a strange thing in the corner startled her so badly she jumped. But then she realized that it was a person, curled up in a ball on the floor. In the next moment she realized that mop of blonde hair was Teddy’s, and she was at his side in an instant.

“Teddy? Are you okay?”

He seemed to be trembling, and now that she was close she could hear his breathing, which was frighteningly fast and gasping. Her heart clenched. He shook his head a little, curling up tighter.

She crawled closer, putting her hand on his shoulder, rubbing a little, trying to comfort him. His breathing did not slow.

“Easy, Teddy, easy. Is… is it your mom?”

He took a long while to respond, nodding a little bit, his voice whining painfully as he tried to breathe. She’d been there that day—they’d all been there, watched Teddy’s mom die painfully, heard Billy screaming in frustration as he tried to summon his magic to save her. Cassie had heard that Teddy wasn’t doing as well as he let on, but she didn’t know he was having this hard a time, and… what if she’d never showed up? Did he want to stay in here and suffer all alone? Cassie felt herself start to get a little panicked. She began to think of what she could do, who might know how to help him—

“Do you want me to call Billy for you?”

Teddy nodded eagerly, picking up his head a little, and for a brief moment Cassie saw his face, beet red and crumpled in tears, his eyes red-rimmed, his mouth open, trying desperately to catch his breath. She put her arm tighter around him, digging into her pocket for her cell phone.

“Okay. I’m calling him right now. It’s gonna be okay, Teddy.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_“And get those yummy crackers with the chocolate filling.”_

Billy scoffed with a smile, and took them off the shelf, putting them in his already abundantly full basket.

“You know,” he said into his phone, “someday I’m going to go to college, and my stomach will suffer from how well I’ve been eating on your dime, Kate. It’ll get one dose of real-people food and stage a coup.”

_“Hey, the food at college is awesome, I hear.”_

“Who do you hear that from?”

Eli tapped him on the arm, dumping a box of some weird flavor of tea into the basket for the girls. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah. Hey Kate, we’ve gotta check out, we’ll meet you up there later.”

_“All right, see you guys later.”_

“See ya.”

Eli frowned, taking the basket off Billy’s arm to put it on the counter. “Any call from Teddy yet?”

Billy opened his phone again. “No. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks he got his phone taken away in science again. That woman has a third eye devoted especially to him and his texting.”

Eli smirked. “Don’t even try to tell me you don’t encourage him.”

Billy looked offended. “I don’t!” he said. “I specifically told him to stop texting me when he’s in that class, because getting his phone taken away is so much worse than having to go one freaking hour without telling me a dumb joke or how the kid next to him is cheating off him.”

Eli shook his head. “You guys are gross.”

Billy smiled, handing over money for their groceries. “In an adorable way.”

“No,” Eli laughed, as Billy’s phone rang again. “Just gross.”

“Ugh, maybe this is him.” Billy said, but frowned when he read the caller I.D. “Hey, Cass,” he said into the phone. “What’s up?”

“Billy,” said Cassie’ worried voice. “I’m at the clubhouse with Teddy. He’s… he’s not doing great.”

Billy’s stomach sank. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, he’s just breathing really hard, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay. Um. He’s probably having a panic attack. So… just, keep telling him to breathe. Eli and I will be there in, like, a minute. Okay?”

“Okay. Yeah. Just hurry.”

“We will, Cass. Hang on.”

Billy hung up his phone, stuffing it back into his sweater pocket and grabbing the grocery bags. Eli stared at him. “What is it?” Eli asked, sounding worried.

“It’s Teddy,” Billy answered. “C’mon.”

Billy led them out of the grocery store and across the street to a tight alleyway. “We don’t have time to walk back,” he explained as he shifted all of the groceries into one hand and reached for Eli’s hand with his other. “I’m teleporting us.”

Eli took Billy’s hand willingly, but still nervously. “If half of me ends up in the Hudson, you’re a dead man,” he said, attempting humour, but Billy was already chanting quietly, his eyes glowing.

_“Iwantustobeattheclubhouse.Iwantustobeattheclubhouse.Iwantustobe—”_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cassie heard rustling out in the kitchen, and her panic lessened slightly. Teddy’s breathing hadn’t slowed at all in the last two minutes—if anything it had intensified—and her soft words of comfort seemed to be falling on deaf ears. She was close to tears herself, partly out of frustration and fear and partly because she knew his pain so well, and remembered clearly what it was like for her the first few weeks after her father’s death. Her heart broke for him. She felt herself getting smaller beside him, her heavy heart compressing her form.

Then the door opened, and Billy was there, only taking a second to survey the two of them before he was inside, getting on to the floor on Teddy’s other side, and scooting close, so that they were almost pressed together.

“Hey, Ted, it’s okay. Shhh. It’s okay now. C’mon—”

Cassie watched as Billy pried Teddy’s arms from around his knees—wondering if Billy had gotten really strong or if Teddy was letting Billy move him—and pulled them down so that Teddy was pressing his hands to his own stomach. His face fell back to his knees, hidden from the room, but Billy wasn’t deterred.

“Can I do the hands?” he asked quietly. After a moment, Teddy nodded, and Billy slowly slipped one arm under Teddy’s to rest against his chest, fingers spread wide, his other hand doing the same on Teddy’s back.

“There,” he began to murmur. “Just feel yourself breathe, okay? Listen to the breath going in your nose and out your mouth. Try slowing it down a little, if you can, okay?”

For a long while, Teddy’s breathing didn’t slow, and the small bathroom was filled with the wet noises of Teddy gasping for air and occasionally whining in pain. Billy seemed to be keeping a calm head, quietly reassuring Teddy that he was there, and everything was all right, but Cassie had to brush tears from her own face. Eventually, Teddy’s breathing began to slow a little.

“What are you doing with your hands?” Cassie asked Billy quietly. Billy picked up his head from where he had had it pressed close to Teddy’s.

“They’re Reiki hands,” he answered. “They’re supposed to help calming energy flow from my body into his.”

Cassie nodded quietly, and watched as Billy put his face close to Teddy’s again, taking very controlled, deep breaths into Teddy’s ear, and occasionally brushing his nose back and forth across Teddy’s cheekbone. Teddy’s breathing slowed slightly more. At one point, Eli came to the door, and Cassie only looked up at him once. His face was creased with worry, his shoulders heavy. They all felt the weight of Teddy’s loss, and the air in the room was thick with it.

After another ten or fifteen minutes—Cassie had lost count—Teddy’s thick voice pierced their silence.

“’M s-sorry I did-didn’t… call y-you… I j-just c-could-couldn’t…”

“Hey,” Billy said gently. “Shhh. Don’t worry about it. It’s okay. I just assumed Mrs. Pendanski had taken your phone away again.”

Teddy laughed quietly, a hiccupping laugh, and it lightened the mood for a brief moment.

“Don’t worry,” Billy continued. “We’re all right here. We’ve got you.”

Cassie looped one of her arms through Teddy’s awkwardly, squeezing to let him know she was there, wiping her face. “Yeah,” she said, her voice thick with unshed tears. “We’ve got you, Teddy.”

Eli didn’t comment, but took a seat near Cassie, reaching out to touch Teddy’s knee as he settled down.

They sat for a long time, listening as Teddy’s breathing calmed to a slow, contrived pace, which Billy mimicked beside him to help him keep it up. “You’re doing such a good job, Ted,” he said softly, nuzzling Teddy again. “Everything’s okay.”

After a while, Teddy was breathing normally on his own again, and he began to straighten a little, dragging his arm across his face to erase the tear tracks. Billy gently let his hand drop from Teddy’s chest, but curled the one on Teddy’s back all the way around him, pulling himself in close to Teddy’s side.

“’M sorry, guys,” Teddy said quietly after a moment. “…Bringin’ down the mood.”

“It’s cool,” Eli said gently, and Cassie squeezed his arm tighter.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s okay. We don’t mind.”

“Do you want to go get some sleep?” Billy asked softly. “Or… maybe we can all watch a movie.”

Teddy leaned into Billy a little. “…Movie sounds cool,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“We just went and bought half the grocery store, too,” Eli said. “There’s tons of sugary crap to eat.”

Teddy nodded, and Eli got up to get out the food and the movies. Cassie gently let go of Teddy’s arm and turned to face Teddy and Billy.

“You’re really good at that stuff, Billy,” she said.

“Good thing for me,” Teddy said quietly, closing his eyes and resting his head on Billy’s shoulder.

Billy smiled softly. “My mom’s a psychologist, so she taught me some stuff. Plus, I got into all that new-age crap to help me deal with my powers.”

“Those Reiki hands really work, huh?” she said.

Teddy hummed, nodding.

“I can teach you sometime, if you want,” Billy said, anticipating Cassie’s question. She smiled a bit, and nodded.

“Seems like it’d be a nice thing to know.”

Billy smiled again. “It is.” He clapped Teddy on the back a little, looking down at his resting face. “Whaddo you say? Candy and movies?”

Teddy hummed again. “Yes, please,” he said.

The four of them sat down with their movie, Cassie and Eli keeping up cheerful conversation until Teddy joined in, smiling occasionally, and even laughing. And if he fell asleep with his head in Billy’s lap halfway through the movie, no one commented.


End file.
